CHAPTER IX - LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TALE OF TERROR.
As the novel of terror passes from the hands of Mrs. Radcliffe tothose of "Monk" Lewis, Maturin and their imitators, there is acrashing crescendo of emotion. The villain's sardonic smile isreplaced by wild outbursts of diabolical laughter, his scowlgrows darker and darker, and as his designs become more bloodyand more dangerous, his victims no longer sigh plaintively, butgive utterance to piercing shrieks and despairing yells; tearfulAmandas are unceremoniously thrust into the background byvindictive Matildas, whose passions rage in all their primitivesavagery; the fearful ghost "fresh courage takes," and standsforth audaciously in the light of day; the very devil stalksshamelessly abroad in manifold disguises. We are caught up fromfirst to last in the very tempest, torrent and whirlwind ofpassion. When the novel of terror thus throws restraint to thewinds, outrageously o'ersteps the modesty of nature and indulgesin a farrago of frightfulness, it begins to defeat its ownpurposes and to fail in its object of freezing the blood. Thelimit of human endurance has been reached--and passed. Emphasisand exaggeration have done their worst. Battle, murder, andsudden death--even spectres and fiends--can appal no more. If theold thrill is to be evoked again, the application of moreingenious methods is needed.
Such novels as Maturin's _Family of Montorio_, though "full ofsound and fury," fail piteously to vibrate the chords of terror,which had trembled beneath Mrs. Radcliffe's gentle fingers. Theinstrument, smitten forcibly, repeatedly, desperately, resoundsnot with the answering note expected, but with an ugly, metallicjangle. _Melmoth the Wanderer_, Maturin's extraordinarymasterpiece, was to prove--as late as 1820--that there werechords in the orchestra of horror as yet unsounded; but in 1816,when Mary Shelley and her companions set themselves to composesupernatural stories, it was wise to dispense with the shriekingchorus of malevolent abbesses, diabolical monks, intriguingmarquises, Wandering Jews or bleeding spectres, who had been sogrievously overworked in previous performances. Dr. Polidori'sskull-headed lady, Byron's vampire-gentleman, Mrs. Shelley'sman-created monster--a grotesque and gruesome trio--had at leastthe attraction of novelty. It is indeed remarkable that so youngand inexperienced a writer as Mary Shelley, who was only nineteenwhen she wrote _Frankenstein_, should betray so slight adependence on her predecessors. It is evident from the records ofher reading that the novel of terror in all its guises wasfamiliar to her. She had beheld the majestic horror of the hallsof Eblis; she had threaded her way through Mrs. Radcliffe'sartfully constructed Gothic castles; she had braved the terrorsof the German Ritter-, Raeuber- und Schauer-Romane; she hadassisted, fearful, at Lewis's midnight diablerie; she hadpatiently unravelled the "mystery" novels of Godwin and ofCharles Brockden Brown.[117] Yet, despite this intimate knowledgeof the terrible and supernatural in fiction, Mrs. Shelley's themeand her way of handling it are completely her own. In an "acutemental vision," as real as the visions of Blake and of Shelley,she beheld her monster and the "pale student of unhallowed arts"who had created him, and then set herself to reproduce the thrillof horror inspired by her waking dream. _Frankenstein_ has,indeed, been compared to Godwin's _St. Leon_, but the resemblanceis so vague and superficial, and _Frankenstein_ so immeasurablysuperior, that Mrs. Shelley's debt to her father is negligible.St. Leon accepts the gift of immortality, Frankenstein creates anew life, and in both novels the main interest lies in tracingthe effect of the experiment on the soul of the man, who haspursued scientific inquiry beyond legitimate limits. But apartfrom this, there is little resemblance. Godwin chose thesupernatural, because it chanced to be popular, and laboriouslybuilt up a cumbrous edifice, completing it by a sheer effort ofwill-power. His daughter, with an imagination naturally moreattuned to the gruesome and fantastic, writes, when once she haswound her way into the heart of the story, in a mood ofbreathless excitement that drives the reader forward withfeverish apprehension.
The name of Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_ is far-famed; but thebook itself, overshadowed perhaps by its literary associations,seems to have withdrawn into the vast library of famous worksthat are more often mentioned than read. The very fact that thename is often bestowed on the monster instead of his creatorseems to suggest that many are content to accept Mrs. Shelley's"hideous phantom" on hearsay evidence rather than encounter forthemselves the terrors of his presence. The story deserves ahappier fate, for, if it be read in the spirit of willingsurrender that a theme so impossible demands, it has still powermomentarily "to make the reader dread to look round, to curdlethe blood and to quicken the beatings of the heart." The recordof the composition of _Frankenstein_ has been so often reiteratedthat it is probably better known than the tale itself. In thesummer of 1816--when the Shelleys were the neighbours of Byronnear Lake Geneva--Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley and Dr. Polidori,after reading some volumes of ghost stories[118] and discussingthe supernatural and its manifestations, each agreed to write aghost story. It has been asserted that an interest in spectreswas stimulated by a visit from "Monk" Lewis, but we have evidencethat Mrs. Shelley was already writing her story in June,[119] andthat Lewis did not arrive at the Villa Diodati till August14th.[120] The conversation with him about ghosts took place fourdays later. Shelley's story, based on the experiences of hisearly youth, was never completed. Byron's fragment formed thebasis of Dr. Polidori's _Vampyre_. Dr. Polidori states that hissupernatural novel, _Ernestus Berchtold_, was begun at this time;but the skull-headed lady, alluded to by Mary Shelley as figuringin Polidori's story, is disappointingly absent. It was anargument between Byron and Shelley about Erasmus Darwin'stheories that brought before Mary Shelley's sleepless eyes thevision of the monster miraculously infused by its creator withthe spark of life. _Frankenstein_ was begun immediately,completed in May, 1817, and published in 1818.
Mrs. Shelley has been censured for setting her tale in a clumsyframework, but she tells us in her preface that she began withthe words: "It was on a dreary night of November." This sentencenow stands at the opening of Chapter IV., where the plot beginsto grip our imagination; and it seems not unfair to assume thatthe introductory letters and the first four chapters, whichcontain a tedious and largely unnecessary account ofFrankenstein's early life, were written in deference to Shelley'splea that the idea should be developed at greater length, and didnot form part of her original plan. The uninteresting student,Robert Walton, to whom Frankenstein, discovered dying amongicebergs, tells his story, is obviously an afterthought. If Mrs.Shelley had abandoned the awkward contrivance of putting thenarrative into the form of a dying man's confession, reportedverbatim in a series of letters, and had opened her story, as sheapparently intended, at the point where Frankenstein, after wearyyears of research, succeeds in creating a living being, her novelwould have gained in force and intensity. From that moment itholds us fascinated. It is true that the tension relaxes fromtime to time, that the monster's strange education and theGodwinian precepts that fall so incongruously from his lips tendto excite our mirth, but, though we are mildly amused, we are nolonger merely bored. Even the protracted descriptions of domesticlife assume a new and deeper meaning, for the shadow of themonster broods over them. One by one those whom Frankensteinloves fall victims to the malice of the being he has endowed withlife. Unceasingly and unrelentingly the loathsome creature dogsour imagination, more awful when he lurks unseen than when hestands actually before us. With hideous malignity he slaysFrankenstein's young brother, and by a fiendish device causesJustine, an innocent girl, to be executed for the crime. Yet erelong our sympathy, which has hitherto been entirely withFrankenstein, is unexpectedly diverted to the monster who, itwould seem, is wicked only because he is eternally divorced fromhuman society. Amid the magnificent scenery of the Valley ofChamounix he appears before his creator, and tells the story ofhis wretched life, pleading: "Everywhere I see bliss from which Ialone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; miserymade me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."
He describes how his physical ugliness repels human beings, whofail to realise his
benevolent intentions. A father snatches fromhis arms the child he has rescued from death; the virtuousfamily, whom he admires and would fain serve, flee affrightedfrom his presence. To educate the monster, so that his thoughtsand emotions may become articulate, and, incidentally, toaccentuate his isolation from society, Mrs. Shelley inserts acomplicated story about an Arabian girl, Sofie, whose loverteaches her to read from Plutarch's _Lives_, Volney's _Ruins ofEmpire, The Sorrows of Werther_, and _Paradise Lost_. The monsteroverhears the lessons, and ponders on this unique library, but,as he pleads his own cause the more eloquently because he knowsSatan's passionate outbursts of defiance and self-pity, who wouldcavil at the method by which he is made to acquire his knowledge?"The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees waved theirbranches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird burstforth amidst the universal stillness. All save I were at rest orin enjoyment. I, like the arch fiend, bore a hell within me." Andlater, near the close of the book: "The fallen angel becomes amalignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friendsand associates in his desolation; I am alone," His fate remindsus of that of _Alastor, the Spirit of Solitude_, who:
"Over the world wanders for ever Lone as incarnate death."
After the long and moving recital of his woes, even the obdurateFrankenstein cannot resist the justice of his demand for apartner like himself. Yet when the student recoils with horrorfrom his half-accomplished task and sees the creature maliciouslypeering through the window, our hatred leaps to life once moreand burns fiercely as the monster adds to his crimes the murderof Clerval, Frankenstein's dearest friend, and of Elizabeth onher wedding night. We follow with shuddering anticipation thelong pursuit of the monster, expectant of a last, fearfulencounter which shall decide the fate of the demon and his maker.Amid the region of eternal ice, Frankenstein catches sight ofhim; but fails to reach him. At last, beside the body of his lastvictim--Frankenstein himself--the creature is filled with remorseat the "frightful catalogue" of his sins, and makes a final bidfor our sympathy in the farewell speech to Walton, beforeclimbing on an ice-raft to be "borne away by the waves and lostin darkness and distance."
Like _Alastor_, _Frankenstein_ was a plea for human sympathy, andwas, according to Shelley's preface, intended "to exhibit theamiableness of domestic affection and the excellence of universalvirtue." The monster has the perception and desire of goodness,but, by the circumstances of his abnormal existence, is deliveredover to evil. It is this dual nature that prevents him from beinga mere automaton. The monster indeed is far more real than theshadowy beings whom he pursues. Frankenstein is less anindividual than a type, and only interests us through theemotions which his conflict with the monster arouses. Clerval,Elizabeth and Frankenstein's relatives are passive suffererswhose psychology does not concern us. Mrs. Shelley rightlylavishes her skill on the central figure of the book, andsucceeds, as effectually as Frankenstein himself, in infusinginto him the spark of life. Mrs. Shelley's aim is to "awakenthrilling horror," and, incidentally, to "exhibit the excellenceof domestic virtue," and for her purpose the demon is ofparamount importance. The involved, complex plot of a novelseemed to pass beyond Mrs. Shelley's control. A short tale shecould handle successfully, and Shelley was unwise in inciting herto expand _Frankenstein_ into a long narrative. So long as she iscompletely carried away by her subject Mrs. Shelley writesclearly, but when she pauses to regard the progress of her storydispassionately, she seems to be overwhelmed by the wealth of herresources and to have no power of selecting the relevant details.The laborious introductory letters, the meticulous record ofFrankenstein's education, the story of Felix and Sofie, thedescription of the tour through England before the creation ofthe second monster is attempted, are all connected with the maintheme by very frail links and serve to distract our attention inan irritating fashion from what really interests us. In the novelof mystery a tantalising delay may be singularly effective. In anovel which depends chiefly for its effect on sheer horror,delays are merely dangerous. By resting her terrors on apseudo-scientific basis and by placing her story in a definitelocality, Mrs. Shelley waives her right to an entire suspensionof disbelief. If it be reduced to its lowest terms, the plot ofFrankenstein, with its bewildering confusion of the prosaic andthe fantastic, sounds as crude, disjointed and inconsequent asthat of a nightmare. Mrs. Shelley's timid hesitation betweenimagination and reality, her attempt to reconcile incompatiblethings and to place a creature who belongs to no earthly land infamiliar surroundings, prevents _Frankenstein_ from being awholly satisfactory and alarming novel of terror. She loves thefantastic, but she also fears it. She is weighted down bycommonsense, and so flutters instead of soaring, unwilling totrust herself far from the material world. But the fact that shewas able to vivify her grotesque skeleton of a plot with somedegree of success is no mean tribute to her gifts. The energy andvigour of her style, her complete and serious absorption in hersubject, carry us safely over many an absurdity. It is only inthe duller stretches of the narrative, when her heart is not inher work, that her language becomes vague, indeterminate andblurred, and that she muffles her thoughts in words like"ascertain," "commencement," "peruse," "diffuse," instead ofusing their simpler Saxon equivalents. Stirred by the excitementof the events she describes, she can write forcibly in simple,direct language. She often frames short, hurried sentences suchas a man would naturally utter when breathless with terror orwith recollections of terror. The final impression that_Frankenstein_ leaves with us is not easy to define, because thebook is so uneven in quality. It is obviously the shapeless workof an immature writer who has had no experience in evolving aplot. Sometimes it is genuinely moving and impressive, but itcontinually falls abruptly and ludicrously short of its aim. Yetwhen all its faults have been laid bare, the fact remains thatfew readers would abandon the story half-way through. Mrs.Shelley is so thoroughly engrossed in her theme that she impelsher readers onward, even though they may think but meanly of herstory as a work of art.
Mrs. Shelley's second novel, _Valperga, or the Life andAdventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca_, published in 1823,was a work on which she bestowed much care and labour, but theresult proves that she writes best when the urgency of herimagination leaves her no leisure either to display her learningor adorn her style. She herself calls _Valperga_ a "child ofmighty slow growth," and Shelley adds that it was "raked out offifty old books." Mrs. Shelley, always an industrious student,made a conscientious survey of original sources before fashioningher story of mediaeval Italy, and she is hampered by theexuberance of her knowledge. The novel is not a romance ofterror; but Castruccio, though his character is sketched fromauthentic documents, seems towards the end of the story toresemble the picturesque villain who numbered among his ancestryMilton's Satan. He has "a majestic figure and a countenancebeautiful but sad, and tarnished by the expression of pride thatanimated it." Beatrice, the gifted prophetess who falls deep inlove with Castruccio, ends her days in the dungeons of theInquisition. Mrs. Shelley's aim, however, is not to arouse fear,but to trace the gradual deterioration of Castruccio's characterfrom an open-hearted youth to a crafty tyrant. The blunt remarksof Godwin, who revised the manuscript, are not unjust, but fallwith an ill grace from the pen of the author of _St. Leon_: "Itappears in reading, that the first rule you prescribed was: 'Iwill let it be long.' It contains the quantity of four volumes of_Waverley_. No hard blow was ever hit with a woodsaw."[121]
In _The Last Man_, which appeared in 1825, Mrs. Shelley attempteda stupendous theme, no less then a picture of the devastation ofthe human race by plague and pestilence. She casts herimagination forward into the twenty-first century, when the lastking of England has abdicated the throne and a republic isestablished. Very wisely, she narrows the interest byconcentrating on the pathetic fate of a group of friends who areamong the last survivors, and the story becomes an idealisedrecord of her own sufferings. The description of the lonelinessof the bereft has a personal note, and reminds us of her journal,where she expresses the sorrow of being herself the las
tsurvivor, and of feeling like a "cloud from which the light ofsunset has passed."[122] Raymond, who dies in an attempt to placethe standard of Greece in Stamboul, is a portrait of Byron; andAdrian, the late king's son, who finally becomes Protector, isclearly modelled on Shelley. Yet in spite of these personalreminiscences, their characters lack distinctness. Idris, Claraand Perdita are faintly etched, but Evadne, the Greek artist, whocherishes a passion for Raymond, and dies fighting against theTurks, has more colour and body than the other women, though sheis somewhat theatrical. Mrs. Shelley conveys emotion morefaithfully than character, and the overwrought sensibilities anddark forebodings of the diminished party of survivors who leaveEngland to distract their minds by foreign travel are artfullysuggested. The leaping, gesticulating figure, whom their jadednerves and morbid fancy transform into a phantom, is a deliriousballet-dancer; and the Black Spectre, mistaken for DeathIncarnate, proves only to be a plague-stricken noble, who lurksnear the party for the sake of human society. These "reasonable"solutions of the apparently supernatural remind us of Mrs.Radcliffe's method, and Mrs. Shelley shows keen psychologicalinsight in her delineation of the state of mind which readilyconjures up imaginary terrors. When Lionel Verney is left alonein the universe, her power seems to flag, and instead of thefinal crescendo of horror, which we expect at the end of thebook, we are left with an ineffective picture of the last man inRome in 2005 deciding to explore the countries he has not yetviewed. As he wanders amid the ruins he recalls not only "theburied Caesars," but also the monk in _The Italian_, of whom hehad read in childhood--a striking proof of Mrs. Shelley's faithin the permanence of Mrs. Radcliffe's fame.
Though the style of _The Last Man_ is often tediously prolix andis disfigured by patches of florid rhetoric and by inappropriatesimiles scattered broadcast, occasional passages of wonderfulbeauty recall Shelley's imagery; and, in conveying the pathos ofloneliness, personal feeling lends nobility and eloquence to herstyle. With so ambitious a subject, it was natural that sheshould only partially succeed in carrying her readers with her.Though there are oases, the story is a somewhat tedious anddreary stretch of narrative that can only be traversed withconsiderable effort.
Mrs. Shelley's later works--_Perkin Warbeck_ (1830), a historicalnovel; _Lodore_ (1835), which describes the early life of Shelleyand Harriet; _Falkner_ (1837), which was influenced by _CalebWilliams_--do not belong to the history of the novel of terror;but some of her short tales, contributed to periodicals andcollected in 1891, have gruesome and supernatural themes. _A Taleof the Passions, or the Death of Despina_[123] a story based onthe struggles of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, contains aperfect specimen of the traditional villain of the novel ofterror:
"Every feature of his countenance spoke of the struggle of passions and the terrible egotism of one who would sacrifice himself to the establishment of his will: his black eyebrows were scattered, his grey eyes deep-set and scowling, his look at once stern and haggard. A smile seemed never to have disturbed the settled scorn which his lips expressed; his high forehead was marked by a thousand contradictory lines."
This terrific personage spends the last years of his life inorthodox fashion as an austere saint in a monastery.
_The Mortal Immortal_, a variation on the theme of _St. Leon_, isthe record of a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, who drank half of theelixir his master had compounded in the belief that it was apotion to destroy love. It is written on his three hundred andtwenty-third birthday. _Transformation_, like _Frankenstein_,dwells on the pathos of ugliness and deformity, but the subjectis treated rather in the spirit of an eastern fairy tale than inthat of a novel of terror. The dwarf, in return for a chest oftreasure, borrows a beautiful body, and, thus disguised, wins thelove of Juliet, and all ends happily. Mrs. Shelley's shortstories[124] reveal a stronger sense of proportion than hernovels, and are written in a more graceful, fluent style than thebooks on which she expended great labour.
The literary history of Byron's fragmentary novel and ofPolidori's short story, _The Vampyre_, is somewhat tangled, butthe solution is to be found in the diary of Dr. John WilliamPolidori, edited and elucidated by William Michael Rossetti. Theday after that on which Polidori states that all the competitors,except himself, had begun their stories, he records the simplefact: "Began my ghost-story after tea." He gives no hint as tothe subject of his tale, but Mrs. Shelley tells us that Polidorihad some idea of a "skull-headed lady, who was so punished forlooking through a key-hole, and who was finally buried in thetomb of the Capulets." In the introduction to _ErnestusBerchtold, or the Modern OEdipus_, he states definitely:
"The tale here presented to the public is one I began at Coligny, when _Frankenstein_ was planned, and when a noble author, having determined to descend from his lofty range, gave up a few hours to a tale of terror, and wrote the fragment published at the end of Mazeppa."
As no skull-headed lady appears in _Ernestus Berchtold_, it isprobable that her career was only suggested to the rest of theparty as an entrancing possibility, and never actually tookshape. This theme would certainly have proved more frightful andpossibly more interesting than the one which Polidori eventuallyadopted in _Ernestus Berchtold_, a rambling, leisurely account ofthe adventures of a Swiss soldier, whose wife afterwards provesto be his own sister. Their father has accepted from a malignantspirit the gift of wealth, but each time that the gift isbestowed some great affliction follows. This secret is notdivulged until we are quite near the close of the story, and havewaited so long that our interest has begun to wane. _ErnestusBerchtold_ is, as a matter of fact, not a novel of terror at all.The supernatural agency, which should have been interlaced withthe domestic story from beginning to end, is only dragged inbecause it was one of the conditions of the competition, asindeed Polidori frankly confesses in his introduction:
"Many readers will think that the same moral and the same colouring might have been given to characters acting under the ordinary agencies of life. I believe it, but I agreed to write a supernatural tale, and that does not allow of a completely everyday narrative."
The candour of this admission forestalls criticism. Strangelyenough, Polidori adds that he has thrown the "superior agency"into the background, because "a tale that rests uponimprobabilities must generally disgust a rational mind." With sodecided a preference for the reasonable and probable, it isremarkable that Polidori should treat the vampire legendsuccessfully. It has frequently been stated that Byron's storywas completed by Polidori; but this assertion is not preciselyaccurate. Polidori made no use of the actual fragment, but basedhis story upon the groundwork on which the fragment was to havebeen continued. Byron's story describes the arrival of twofriends amid the ruins of Ephesus. One of them, Darvell, who,like most of Byron's heroes, is enshrouded in mystery, and is aprey to some cureless disquiet, falls ill and dies. Before hisdeath he demands that his companion shall on a certain day throwa ring into the salt springs that run into the bay of Eleusis. Ifwe may trust Polidori's account, Byron intended that thesurvivor, on his return to England, should be startled to beholdhis companion moving in society, and making love to his sister.On this foundation Polidori constructed _The Vampyre_. The storyopens with the description of a nobleman, Lord Ruthven, whoseappearance and character excite great interest in London society.His face is remarkable for its deadly pallor, and he has a "dead,grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem topenetrate and at one glance to pierce through to the inwardworkings of the heart, but fell upon the cheek with a leaden raythat laid (_sic_) upon the skin it could not pass." A young mannamed Aubrey, who arrives in London about the same time, becomesdeeply interested in the study of Ruthven's character. When hejoins him on a tour abroad he discovers that his companion takesa fiendish delight in ruining the innocent at the gaming-table;and, after receiving a warning of Ruthven's reputation, decidesto leave him, but to continue to watch him closely. He succeedsin foiling his designs against a young Italian girl in Rome.Aub
rey next travels to Greece, where he falls in love withIanthe. One day, in spite of warnings that the place he purposesto visit is frequented by vampires, Aubrey sets off on anexcursion. Benighted in a lonely forest, he hears theterror-stricken cries of a woman in a hovel, and, on attemptingto rescue her, finds himself in the grasp of a being ofsuperhuman strength, who cries: "Again baffled!" When lightdawns, Aubrey makes the terrible discovery that Ianthe has becomethe prey of a vampire. He carries away from the spot ablood-stained dagger. In the delirious fever, which ensues on hisdiscovery of Ianthe's fate, Aubrey is nursed by Lord Ruthven.While they are travelling in Greece, Ruthven is shot in theshoulder by a robber, and, before dying, exacts from Aubrey asolemn oath that he will not reveal for a year and a day what heknows of his crimes or death. In accordance with a promise madeto Ruthven, his body is conveyed to a mountain to be exposed tothe rays of the moon. The corpse disappears. Among Ruthven'spossessions Aubrey finds a sheath, into which the dagger he hasfound in the hovel fits exactly. On passing through Rome helearns that the girl he had once saved from Ruthven has vanished.When he returns to London, Aubrey is horrified to behold thefigure of Lord Ruthven almost on the very spot where he had firstseen him. He dare not break his oath, and soon becomes almostdemented. The news of his sister's marriage seems to rouse himmomentarily from his lethargy, and when he discovers that Ruthvenis to be the bridegroom he urges her to delay the marriage. Hiswarnings are disregarded, and the ceremony takes place. Aubreyrelates to his sister's guardians all that he knows of Ruthven,but it is too late. Ruthven has disappeared, and she has "gluttedthe thirst of a vampyre."
Polidori's manner of telling the story is curiously matter offact and restrained. He relates the incidents as they occur, andleaves the reader to form his own conclusions. If Lewis had beenhandling the theme he would have wallowed in gory details, andwould have expatiated on the agonies of his victims. Polidoriwisely keeps his story in a quiet key, depending for his effecton the terror of the bare facts. He realises that he is on theverge of the unspeakable.
Polidori's story set a fashion in vampires, who appear ascharacters in fiction all through the nineteenth century. Awriter in the _Dublin University Magazine_ tells of a vampire whoplays an admirable game of whist! There is an "explained" vampirein one of George Macdonald's stories, _Adela Cathcart_. Theprince of vampires is, however, Bram Stoker's _Dracula_, roundwhom centres a story of absorbing interest.
De Quincey, who might have selected from the novel of terror manyadmirable illustrations for his essay on _Murder, Considered asone of the Fine Arts_, and who seems to have been attracted bythe German type of horrific story, shows some facility insensational fiction. In _Klosterheim_, a one-volumed novelpublished in 1832, the interest circles round the machinations ofan elusive, ubiquitous "Masque," eventually revealed to be noneother than the son of the late Landgrave, who, like many a manbefore him in the tale of terror, has been done to death by ausurper. Disappearances through trap-doors, and escapes downsubterranean passages are effected with a dexterity suggestive ofMrs. Radcliffe's methods; and the inexplicable murders, with theexception of that of an aged seneschal accidentally betrayed, arenot real. In certain of his moods and habits, the Masque bears alikeness to Lewis's "Bravo," but the setting of De Quincey'sstory is very different. The adventures of the Masque and of theLady Pauline are cast in Germany amid the confusion of the ThirtyYears' War. In _The Household Wreck_, published in _Blackwood'sMagazine_, January 1838, De Quincey shows his power of conveyinga sense of foreboding, that anticipation of horror which is oftenmore harrowing than the reality. Another tale of terror, _TheAvenger_, published in the same year, describes a series ofbloodcurdling murders which baffle the skill of the police, butwhich eventually prove to have been committed by a son to avengedishonour done to his Jewish mother. For a collection of _PopularTales and Romances of the Northern Nations_, published in 1823,De Quincey translated _Der Freischuetz_ from the German of J.A.Apel, under the title of _The Fatal Marksman_. By means ofill-gotten magic bullets the marksman wins his bride, but by oneof those little ironies in which the devil delights to indulge,she is slain on the wedding-day by a bullet, which is aimedstraight, but goes askew. In _The Dice_, another short story fromthe German, De Quincey once again exploits the old theme of abargain with the devil.
De Quincey's contributions to the tale of terror shrink intounimportance beside the rest of his work, and are not inthemselves remarkable. They are of interest as showing thewidespread and long-enduring vogue of the species. It isnoteworthy how many writers, whose main business lay elsewhere,have found time to make erratic excursions into the realms of thesupernatural.
So late as 1834--more than a decade after the appearance of_Melmoth_--Harrison Ainsworth, whose imagination was steeped interror, sought once more to revive the "feeble and flutteringpulses of old Romance." Among his earliest experiments were talesobviously fashioned in the Gothic manner. His Imperishable One,the hero of a tale first published in the _European Magazine_ for1822, bemoans the burden of immortality in the listless tones ofGodwin's St. Leon, and is tempted by the fallen angel in theself-same guise in which he appeared to Lewis's notorious monk.In _The Test of Affection_ (_European Magazine_, 1822) a wealthyman avails himself of Mrs. Radcliffe's supernatural trickery totest the loyalty of his friends, whom he succeeds in alarming bynoises and a skeleton apparition. In _Arliss's Pocket Magazine_(1822) there appeared _The Spectre Bride_; and in the _EuropeanMagazine_ (1823) Ainsworth attempted a theme that would haveattracted Poe in _The Half Hangit_. _The Boeotian_ for 1824contained _A Tale of Mystery_, and the _Literary Souvenir_ for1825 _The Fortress of Saguntum_, a story in the style of Lewis.Ainsworth's first novel, _Rookwood_ (1834), was inspired by avisit to Cuckfield Place, an old manor house which had remindedShelley of "bits of Mrs. Radcliffe":
"Wishing to describe somewhat minutely the trim gardens, the picturesque domains, the rook-haunted groves, the gloomy chambers and gloomier galleries of an ancient hall with which I was acquainted, I resolved to attempt a story in the bygone style of Mrs. Radcliffe, substituting an old English squire, an old manorial residence and an old English highwayman for the Italian marchise, the castle and the brigand of that great mistress of romance... The attempt has succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectation. Romance, if I am not mistaken, is destined shortly to undergo an important change. Modified by the German and French writers--Hoffmann, Tieck, Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Balzac and Paul Lacroix--the structure commenced in our land by Horace Walpole, 'Monk' Lewis, Mrs. Radcliffe and Maturin, but, left imperfect and inharmonious, requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful architect to its entire renovation and perfection."
In _Rookwood_, Ainsworth disdains Mrs. Radcliffe's reasonableelucidations of the supernatural, and introduces spectres whoseexistence it would be impossible to deny. Once, however, asupposed ghost becomes substantial, and proves to be none otherthan a human being called Jack Palmer. The sexton, Luke Bradley,_alias_ Alan Rookwood, has inherited two of the Wanderer'straits--the fear-impelling eyes of intolerable lustre, and thehabit of indulging in wild, screaming laughter on the mostinauspicious occasions.
Gothic properties are scattered with indiscriminateextravagance--skeleton hands, suddenly extinguished candles,sliding panels, sepulchral vaults. The plot of _Rookwood_ is toocomplicated and too overcrowded with incident to keep ourattention. The terrors are so unremitting that they fail tostrike home. The only part of the book which holds us enthralledis the famous description of Dick Turpin's ride to York. Here weforget Ainsworth's slip-shod style in the excitement of thechase. In his later novels Ainsworth abandoned the manner of Mrs.Radcliffe, but did not fail to make use of the motive of terrorand mystery. The scenes of horror which he strove to convey inwords were often more admirably depicted in the illustrations ofCruikshank. The sorcerer's sabbath in _Crichton_, the historicalscenes of horror in _The Tower of London_, the m
asque of theDance of Death in _Old St. Paul's_, the appearance of Herne theHunter, heralded by phosphoric lights, in _Windsor Castle_, theterrible orgies of _The Lancashire Witches_, are described withmore striking effect because of Ainsworth's early reading in theschool of terror. In _Auriol_, which was first published in_Ainsworth's Magazine_ (1844-5) under the title _Revelations ofLondon_, was issued in 1845 as a gratuitous supplement to the_New Monthly_, and greeted with derision,[125] Ainsworth handledonce again the theme that fascinated Lytton. The Prologue (1599)describes the death of Dr. Lamb, whose elixir is seized by hisgreat-grandson. In 1830 London is haunted by a stranger, whoinvolves Auriol in wildly fantastic and frightful adventures. Thebook closes in Dr. Lamb's laboratory; the intervening scenes arebut dream imagery. Phiz's sketch of the Ruined House is the mostlasting memory left by the book.
Captain Marryat, whose mind was well stored with sailors' yarns,retells in _The Phantom Ship_ (1839) the old legend of the FlyingDutchman. At one time the doomed vessel is an unsubstantialvision, which can pass clean through the Utrecht; at another sheis a real craft, whose deck can be boarded by mortal men. Theone-eyed pilot, Schriften, with his malignant hatred of the hero,Philip, is a terrifying figure. The story is embroidered by theinvention of a wife of Arab extraction, who is constantlyattempting to recall the half-forgotten magical arts which hermother had practised. Marryat makes an opportunity in the historyof Krantz, the second mate of the _Vrou Katerina_, to introducethe Scandinavian legend of the werewolf, which is related withgrisly detail.
The novel of terror, with all its faults, had seldom been guiltyof demanding intellectual strain or of overburdening itself witherudition. It was the dignified task of Lord Lytton torationalise and elevate the novel of terror, to evolve the "manof reason" from the "child of nature." Although time hastarnished the brilliance of his reputation, George Edward Bulwerwas an imposing figure in the history of nineteenth centuryfiction. Throughout his life, in spite of political and socialdistractions and of matrimonial disaster, he continued to engagewith unwearying industry in literary work. He was not a man ofgenius in whom the creative impulse found its own expression, buta versatile and accomplished gentleman who could direct histalents into any channel he pleased. Essays, translations,verses, plays, novels flowed from his pen in rapid succession,and he won his meed of applause and fame, as well as his share ofexecration and derision, in his own lifetime. Quick to discernthe popular taste of the hour, and eager to gratify it, Lytton,with the resourceful agility of a lightning impersonator, turnsin his novels from Wertherism to dandyism, from criminalpsychology to fairy folk-lore, from historical romance todomestic romance, from pseudo-philosophic occultism topseudo-scientific fantasy. He ranges at will in the past, thepresent or the future, consorting indifferently with impalpablewraiths, Vrilya or mysterious Sages. It is to his credit thatthis unusual gift of adaptability does not result inincompetency. Though he attempts a variety of manners, it must injustice be acknowledged that he does most of them well. Heconstructs his plots with laborious art, and pays a deliberate,if sometimes misguided, attention to style. When he fails, it isless from lack of effort than from over-elaboration and excess ofzeal.
Bulwer Lytton's predilection for the supernatural was neither atheatrical pose nor a passing folly excited by the fashionablecraze for psychical research, but a genuine and enduringinterest, inherited, it may be, from his ancestor, the learned,eccentric savant, Dr. Bulwer, who studied the Black Art anddabbled in astrology and palmistry. He was a member of thesociety of Rosicrucians, and, to quote the words of his grandson,"he certainly did not study magic for the sake of writing aboutit, still less did he write about it, without having studied it,merely for the sake of making his readers' flesh creep." From hisearly years Lytton seems to have been keenly interested insupernatural manifestations. He was inspired by the desertedrooms at the end of a long gallery in Knebworth House to set downthe story of the ghost, Jenny Spinner, who was said to hauntthem; and the concealed chamber in _The Haunted and the Haunters_may have been a revived memory of the trap-door down which Lyttonas a boy had "peeped with bristling hair into the shadowy abyssesof hellhole." In _Glenallan_,[126] an early fragment, we findpromising material for a tale of mystery--a villain with a"strange and sinister expression," a boy who, like the youthfulShelley, steals forth by night to graveyards, hoping to attain tofearful secrets, and an aged servant, a living chronicle ofhorrors, who relates the doings of an Irish wizard, MorshedTyrone, of such awful power that the spirits of the earth, airand ocean ministered to him. In _Godolphin_ (1833) there is anastrologer with the furrowed brow and awful eye, so common amongthe people of terror, and a strangely gifted girl, Lucilla, whoturns soothsayer. But when Bulwer Lytton attempts a supernaturalromance he leaves far behind him the sphere of Gothic terrors andsoars into rarefied, exalted regions that inspire awe rather thanhorror. The Dweller of the Threshold in _Zanoni_ is nored-cloaked, demoniacal figure springing from a trap-door with adeafening clap of thunder, but a "Colossal Shadow" brooding overthe crater of Vesuvius.
The romance, _Zanoni_ (1842), which Lytton considered thegreatest of his works and which Carlyle praised with what nowseems extravagant fervour, was based on an earlier sketch,_Zicci_ (1838), and embodies a complicated theory which he hadconceived several years earlier after reading some mediaevaltreatises on astrology and the occult sciences. While his mindwas occupied with these studies, the character of Mejnour and themain outlines of the story were inspired by a dream, which herelated to his son. According to Lytton's theory, the air ispeopled with Intelligences, of whom some are favourable, othershostile to man. The earth contains certain plants, which, rightlyused, have power to arrest the decay of the human body, and toenable man, by quickening his physical senses and mental gifts,to perceive the aerial beings and to discover the secrets ofnature. This supernatural knowledge is in possession of abrotherhood of whom two only, Mejnour and his pupil Zanoni, arein existence. The initiation involves the surrender of allviolent passions and emotions, and the neophyte must be broughtinto contact with the powerful and malignant being called theDweller of the Threshold:
"Whose form of giant mould No mortal eye can fixed behold,"
Mejnour and Zanoni are supposed to have been initiated--theformer in old age, the latter in youth--more than five thousandyears before the story opens. Thus Mejnour remains for ever avigorous old man; while Zanoni, his pupil, enjoys perpetualyouth. Mejnour is purely intellectual, and spends his life incontemplation; while Zanoni, though he must avoid love andfriendship which are unknown to the passionless Intelligences,feels sympathy with human beings.
Zanoni, who spends his life in the pursuit of pleasure, afterfifty centuries at last falls in love with Viola, an Italianopera-singer. Like Melmoth the Wanderer, Zanoni is reluctant tobind the woman he loves to his own fate. He tries to renounceViola to an Englishman, Glyndon, who eventually chooses torelinquish love for the sake of achieving the unearthly knowledgeof Mejnour. Glyndon, however, fails in the trial, and isconsequently haunted by the horror of the Dweller of theThreshold. Meanwhile Zanoni is united to Viola; and because hehas succumbed to the force of love, his peculiar powers begin tofail. He can no longer see the beautiful, aerial intelligence,Adon-Ai. To save from death Viola and the child who is born tothem, Zanoni ere long yields to the Dweller of the Threshold hisgift of communion with the inhabitants of heaven. Later Viola,who incidentally typifies Superstition deserting Faith, leavesZanoni at the call of Glyndon, and in Paris, during the Reign ofTerror, is doomed to die. Zanoni invokes the aid of themysterious Intelligences, and his courage at length bringsAdon-Ai again to his side. He wins a day's reprieve for Viola,and is executed in her stead. The death of Robespierre releasesthe prisoners, but Viola dies the next day.
The compact between Zanoni and the Dweller of the Threshold is arenovation of the time-worn legend of the bargain with an evilspirit, but Lytton transforms it almost beyond recognition.Zanoni is no criminal. He has attained his secrets throughwill-power, self-conquest, and the subo
rdination of the flesh tothe spirit, and he surrenders his gifts willingly for the sake ofanother. Both Mejnour and Zanoni disclaim miraculous powers, yetZanoni is ready to stake his mistress on a cast of the dice, andcan cause the death of three sanguinary marauders withoutstirring from the apartment in which he ordinarily pursues hischemical studies. From such incidents as these it would seem asif Lytton, for the actual craftsmanship of _Zanoni_, may havegleaned stray hints from the novel of terror; but the spirit andintention of the book are entirely different. Though Lyttonexpressly declares that his _Zanoni_ is not an allegory, heconfesses that it has symbolical meanings. Zanoni is apt toassume the superior pose of a lecturer elucidating an abstrusesubject to an unenlightened audience. The impression of artificethat the book makes upon us is probably due to the fact thatLytton first conceived his theories and then created personagesto illustrate them. His characters have no power to act of theirown volition or to do unexpected things, but must move along thelines laid down for them.
In _The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain_,which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1859, Bulwer Lyttonlays aside the sin of over-elaboration and ornamentation that soeasily besets him, and relies for his effect on the impalpablehorror of his story. The calm, business-like overture, theaccurate description of the position of the house in a street offthe north side of Oxford Street, the insistence on thematter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courageof his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony,all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. The eeriechild's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands,the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintlyoutlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb withruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drownedman, the dark figure with malignant serpent eyes, shadow forththe story hinted at in the letters found in an old drawer.Haunted by loathly presences, the watcher experiences a sensationof almost intolerable horror, but saves himself at the worst byopposing his will to that of the haunters. He rightly surmisesthat the evil influences, which seem in some way to emanate froma small empty room, really proceed from a living being. Hisinterpretation is skilful and subtle enough not to detract fromthe simple horror of the tale. A miniature, certain volatileessences, a compass, a lodestone and other properties are foundin a room below that which appeared to be the source of thehorrors. It proves that the man, whose face is portrayed on theminiature has been able through the exertion of will-power toprolong his life for two centuries, and to preserve a curse in amagical vessel. He is actually interviewed by the watcher, towhom he unfolds his remarkable history, and whom he mesmerisesinto silence on the subject of his experiences in the hauntedhouse for a space of three months.
Lytton realises that it is not only what is told but what is leftunsaid that requires consideration in a ghost story. Hisreticence and the entire absence of any note of mockery or doubtsecure the "willing suspension of disbelief" necessary to theappreciation of the apparently supernatural.
In _A Strange Story_, which, at Dickens's invitation, appeared in_All the Year Round_ (1861-2), Bulwer Lytton further elaborateshis theories of mesmerism and willpower. He explains his purposein the Preface:
"When the reader lays down this strange story, perhaps he will detect, through all the haze of Romance, the outlines of these images suggested to his reason: Firstly, the image of sensuous, soulless Nature, such as the Materialist had conceived it. Secondly, the image of Intellect, obstinately separating all its inquiries from the belief in the spiritual essence and destiny of man, and incurring all kinds of perplexity and resorting to all kinds of visionary speculation before it settles at last into the simple faith which unites the philosopher and the infant. And thirdly, the image of the erring but pure-thoughted Visionary, seeking overmuch on this earth to separate soul from mind, till innocence itself is led astray by a phantom and reason is lost in the space between earth and the stars."
These three conceptions are embodied in Margrave, who has renewedhis life far beyond the limits allotted to man; a young doctor,Fenwick, who represents the intellectual divorced from thespiritual; and Lilian Ashleigh, a clairvoyante girl, who typifiesthe spiritual divorced from the intellectual. The interest of thestory turns on the struggle of Fenwick to gain his bride, and towrest her from the influence of Margrave. The plot, intricatelytangled, is unravelled with patient skill. In spite of thewearisome explanations of Dr. Faber, who is lucid but verbose,there is a fascination about the book which compels us to goforward.
In Lytton's hands the barbarity of the novel of terror has beengracefully smoothed away. It has, indeed, become almostunrecognisably refined and elevated, and something of its nativevigour is lost in the process. Amid all the amenities of Vrilyaand Intelligences, we miss the vulgar blatancy of an honest,old-fashioned spectre.